the 20th day
by sleeptalking
Summary: ' You are not my fucking Messiah, shielding me from the darkness. You are not my saviour, my protector. Hell, you don't even know anything about me apart from my body. Spare me your pity. Please, I beg you. '


Prologue:

The fish market reeked of damp cardboard and rotting seafood. A nauseating combination. Every morning, vendors scramble to set up the day's goods before the crack of dawn just in time for the first shoppers of the day. The damp street market was old, probably older than the city itself. It showed in the cracks in the dirty pavement; it showed in the vines that infest the walls of the alleyway; and it showed in the lines of the faces of the vendors, who have been selling fish since half a decade ago and will, with every chance they get, try to sneak you the roughest cut and absurd extra fees.

Every so often, street police or inspectors from the local health department would turn up to sniff out all the unlicensed vendors, though they are not a concern and can usually be bribed with some crab legs or a basket of lettuce hearts. How ironic, Mo Guan Shan thought, that these people whose jobs are to serve justice and protect the public, are always lurking where no danger is in sight yet unreachable when they are really needed, like last night.

Mo Guan Shan hadn't really _planned_ to get into a fight last night. It's a completely different story though, when trouble comes looking for _him_. Yet he'd prefer not to think about it, as if he can trick himself into believing that last night was only a flashback from his hoodlum days back in middle school; that the gaping cut on his thigh was only from a drunk, yet harmless customer at the bar where he worked; that the bruising on his cheeks was from an accidental run-in with a pole; or that the scratches around his neck were from a girlfriend who was simply too eager. Mo Guan Shan preferred not to think about it all. After all, he told himself, it didn't matter. In this part of town, fights are so common that everyone, even the police, turn a blind eye. Organized crime, drug trafficking, and human markets are the real concern. Powerless, impoverished people like him can drop like flies for all the authorities care. A small piece of the local newspaper for his obituary might only create a small ripple in the community. Then everyone would carry on living their everyday lives.

He continued to make his way through the market, his footsteps echoing on the pavement. It is 10 o'clock at night, and the vendors are long gone. It was quiet, almost too quiet. Rotting greens and fish tails on the ground was the only evidence of a busy, lively morning.

When his mother was alive, Mo Guan Shan liked frequenting this market. It didn't matter that the smell of the produce made him want to throw up, and it didn't matter that the vendors shot him dirty looks every time he approached a stall, as if they could smell the poverty on him. Cooking calmed him down. He loved to cook for his ma, and his ma loved his cooking. Guan Shan specialized in making disgusting foods taste almost enjoyable. He was a magician in the kitchen, his ma used to tell him. Back then, his specialty was a brewed tofu bass soup he made almost every night. The steam from the soup would be enough to warm up their little cramped kitchen even in the coldest winter days. He and his ma would sit around a little makeshift wooden table with a bowl of soup and rice and talk about their day. Guan Shan would tell her about some customer who got too drunk at the bar and cried to see the wife, and his mother would talk about what she did at home during the day. Then they would laugh at the customer and make plans for Guan Shan's next day off. Those were the rare moments when Mo Guan Shan had felt that there was warmth in the city.

Every since his ma passed, Guan Shan stopped frequenting this market. He would still pass the alleyway on his way to work at night, walking just slightly faster with a sense of unjustified urgency, yet he never stopped in the morning. He had also stopped cooking, living off instant ramen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

As he was walking that night as he always does, something strange had happened. He wasn't sure what had caused what happened next. Perhaps it was the pain from the fight, or his empty stomach, or a growing headache, or the realization that he will be homeless on the streets next month because his rent money went to pay for his medical bills. Perhaps it was one those things, perhaps it was all of those things.

Suddenly, in the middle of the market, for the first time since his mother had died, Mo Guan Shan stopped.

At first, he wasn't sure what he was doing. He tried to walk, but his legs were filled with lead. He was confused. He didn't know why he had stopped. A voice in his head had commanded him to stop and he couldn't disobey.

He stood there, alone, in the middle of an empty fish market, alone, in the darkness of the night, alone.

It wasn't until he was on his feet, running down the alleyway back home, _away_ from where he was supposed to be going; it wasn't until he had felt tears stinging his eyes, the wind stabbing through his flimsy jacket, the wetness of his cheeks; it wasn't until he had hastily stuffed his pitifully few belongings in a duffel bag; it wasn't until he had bought a train ticket with the 60 dollars left in his pockets; it wasn't until he had stepped foot on a train back to the city where he had grown up and gone to school and made his first friends- that he realized whose voice it was, calling out in to him.

It was _his voice_.

" _Mo Guan Shan,"_ the voice beckoned. " _come home. I have waited too long."_


End file.
